


Princess Babysitter

by hayjolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:38:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayjolras/pseuds/hayjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette and Marius ask Enjolras to babysit their daughter, Charlotte, for one night. Enjolras agrees rather reluctantly. Hijinx ensue, as Enjolras is not aware of the powers of persuasion in the hands of a three year old girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Princess Babysitter

“Combeferre, you have to come help me. It’s an emergency.”

“Enjolras,” Combeferre sighs into the phone, “what on earth is wrong  _now_?”

“I think this child might be the work of the devil.”

“I --  _Enjolras_ , she is a three and a half year old girl -- what on earth could she be doing?”

Enjolras looks over at the girl twirling in front of him, her chin up and head held high, like a ballerina. She is also humming the tune to  _The Nutcracker_ , which impresses him, though he won’t admit it.

“She’s wearing a fluffy pink skirt and a tiara on her head -- a  _tiara_!” Enjolras repeats, clearly upset by this hair decoration. “This is the sort of riff-raff Cosette and Marius allow to take place in their house hold!”

“She’s playing ballerina, Enjolras, you need to calm down, and I need to go,” Combeferre says, exhaling loudly. “I have an exam tomorrow.” He wants to add,  _Please do not call me again unless the house is on fire_ , but he knows that, to Enjolras, a small child is the equivalent of a burning house.

Enjolras slips his phone into his pocket and again looks at the girl. She has Cosette’s blonde hair and Marius’s freckles, and big, blue eyes a shade lighter than his own.

Enjolras knows he is not the best with children, but Marius and Cosette had been desperate for a babysitter, so Enjolras took a night off from his rigorous studying and planning to look after the girl/spawn of Satan, in all her chubby-cheeked, wide eyed innocence.

It’d be  _fun_ , they said.

You’re a responsible adult, they said.

It’s only for a  _few_  hours, at most, they said.

But no one had  _said_  that children have an inexhaustible amount of energy. Even Enjolras needs caffeine every once and a while. But no, not this little ragamuffin, with her wild curls and tu-tu-ed skirt. She is all screams and shrieks and zooming in and out of the playroom to the kitchen, and back again.

“Okay!” Enjolras finally yells to stop the girl. “Little citizen --”

“I told you,” Charlotte replies, pouting, “my name is _Charlotte_.”

“Charlotte,” Enjolras tries again, the name foreign on his tongue. “Do you want to hear a story?”

Charlotte’s eyes light up at the promise of a story, but after she sits next to Enjolras on the couch and he begins, her smile grows into a disapproving frown.

“The story is supposed to start with, ‘Once upon a time,” is what she says the first time she interupts Enjolras. The second time, it’s, “What’s a monarchy?”, and the third and final time is, “This is a dumb story. People love their princesses.”

And with that, she hops off the couch and starts zooming again, her freckled fists clenched tightly around with what Enjolras assumes to be an invisible wheel, either driving an imaginary car or flying a pretend airplane.

Enjolras sighs and sits back on the couch, contemplating on whether or not to tell Charlotte the story of one Marie Antoinette. He decides better of it, though, as he pictures Cosette’s face when Charlotte, no doubt, repeats the story; he does not desire to suffer the same fate as the late Dauphine.

Finally, the little girl zooms out of the kitchen, straight past Enjolras, and up the stairs to the second floor, and disappears.

“What are you doing?” Enjolras calls after her weakly.

After a moment of silence, Charlotte’s head pops out. She’s wearing, to Enjolras’s horror, a new crown; _one_ is bad enough, but several others...not that he’s surprised. This is _Marius’s_ daughter he’s babysitting. Enjolras wouldn’t be surprised if there was a picture of Napoleon himself above Charlotte’s bedroom.

“Having a tea party,” Charlotte answers, as if Enjolras is the least intelligent person she has ever encountered.

“If you’re going to have it, can you at least have it down here?”

“No.”

“Why on earth not?”

“This party is only for princesses, and  _you’re_  not a princess.”

“But I have to watch you.”

Charlotte shrugs as if to say, “Not my problem,” and again disappears into what Enjolras presumes to be her bedroom.

Stuck in between two very uncomfortable situations, Enjolras crosses his arms and thinks. He can’t leave her alone...but he also can’t go up there and pretend to be a princess. What would his friends think of him if he did? Spending all that time ranting against the monarchy, all to have it undone by a rambunctious three year old? Could children really bring down a whole revolution? A small army of children, marching through the streets of Paris in tiaras and tu-tus, calling for reform of the government...small enough to crawl through the barricades, adorable enough to win the hearts and minds of politicians everywhere...

The thought terrifies Enjolras into staying exactly where he is, until he hears Charlotte’s voice come from her room.

“Yes, Princess Sparkles, the tea is very good, isn’t it?”

Enjolras jumps up, thinking there is someone under the name of Princess Sparkles hiding in Charlotte’s room.

“Did you hear about Princess Gloria, Princess Margaret? Would you like some more tea, Queen Elizabeth?”

How many of them are up there?

Enjolras, thinking that Charlotte has begun gathering her supporters into rebellion, flies up the stairs into Charlotte’s room.

It’s not pink, as Enjolras expected. It’s actually a light blue, which a pretty canopy bed, with matching furniture and a little table and chairs at which Charlotte and her companions are sitting. Only her companions are not of the human variety; there is, instead, a stuffed unicorn, a doll with blonde curls and a pinafore, and a teddy bear with a pink party hat sitting jauntily on its head.

Sighing in relief at the lack of real children, Enjolras puts his hand on the door to leave again, but Charlotte stops him with a powerful, “Freeze!” Which Enjolras does, his hand gripping the doorknob.

“This is  _my_  room,” Charlotte announces. “And  _I_  make the rules. And the rules are, if you are in here, you are a princess. So now,” she demands grandly, “you must sit.”

Enjolras bites his lip, but, still wary of this clearly brilliant tiny human, turns around and takes a seat next to the bear as Charlotte gets up and rummages under her bed for something.

Finally she pulls out, to Enjolras’s horror, another tiara. “Here,” she says, stomping over to Enjolras and holding out the fuzzy pink crown with fake jewels in the middle. “Wear this. You are now Princess Babysitter.”

She gives Enjolras a pleased expression as he silently places the tiara on his head, praying to General Lamarque to forgive him for his grave sins.

“Good!” she exclaims happily, clapping her hands and sitting back down. “See, you are a princess!” she exclaims to Enjolras. “You even have hair like Cinderella’s.”

Enjolras tucks a strand of long hair consciously behind his ear as he accepts the cup of tea from Charlotte, tight lipped and feeling like a bit of a captive.

And that is how Marius and Cosette find the pair when they arrive home two hours later, only this time, Charlotte is listening, wide-eyed, as Enjolras tells the story of the beginnings of France, the history of the country.

“Monarchies are usually corrupt --”

“Corr-upt?”

“...bad, to put it simply.”

“Not  _all_  princess are bad, though,” Charlotte says with a pout. “ _I’m_  a good princess,  _you’re_  a good princess --”

“Enjolras, what on  _earth_  are you doing?” Cosette says with a wide grin, leaning against the door frame, laughing as Enjolras topples over in his seat.

“Mommy!” Cosette shrieks as she jumps up and runs to her mother, who scoops her up and balances her on her hip, kissing Charlotte’s curls.

“I was -- uh -- just,” Enjolras says, wringing his hands, tripping over his words, his worst fear coming to life before his very eyes.

“Marius! Come here, you have to come see this --”

“Enjolras is a princess!” Charlotte exclaims as Marius approaches the room, and, upon seeing Enjolras standing there in his tiara helplessly, takes out his cellphone and immediately begins snapping pictures before Enjolras can take off the crown and put it on the tea table.

“You will never live this one down,” Marius chuckles as Enjolras bows his head in shame. He can practically hear the future jokes and jabs his friends will make about this, all because of one little blonde girl.

The laughter dies down when Cosette notices Charlotte yawning, and kicks the two out of the room so she can put her daughter to bed.

The men trudge downstairs, Enjolras warning Marius, “I believe your daughter is trying to outdo our plans. You should be careful of her.”

Marius just rolls his eyes and shakes his head as Cosette comes down the stairs.

“She’s asleep -- thank you so much for doing this Enjolras, really,” Cosette says as Enjolras picks up his jacket to go. “She kept babbling on about you as I was changing her into pajamas, and she wanted you to keep this,” she adds, holding out the fuzzy tiara for Enjolras to take.

He does so reluctantly, aware of the smirks on his friends’ faces as he looks down at it, trying not to smile himself. Perhaps Charlotte wasn’t so bad, after all, despite her obvious future plans for taking over the country -- perhaps even world domination, though Enjolras can’t really be sure.

“She wants you to bring it  _next_  time you babysit,” Cosette says smugly as Marius wraps an around her lovingly. “She also said that, next time, she wants to put flowers in your hair, because ‘hair that pretty should have flowers in it’.”


End file.
